But after two police investigations, a five-week coronial hearing last year and a 162-page document of findings released by Coroner Alexander Ho yesterday, the truth behind what happened to 3-year-old Lachie Jones, who was found in an oxidation pond 1.2km from his home, remained out of reach.
So much so that the coroner ordered police conduct a third "fresh and full investigation".
"Bluntly, it is difficult to escape the lingering impression that much of what occurred was a shambles which could, and should, have been avoided," he said.
He pointed out a slew of deficiencies in officers’ actions in the immediate aftermath of Lachie’s death on January 29, 2019, which started with a leadership vacuum.
"There were frankly astonishing scenes at inquest of two senior police officers each disclaiming responsibility for leading the investigation," the coroner said.
"It did not bode well for the quality of the investigation that no-one could tell me who was actually in control."
What followed was a rapid assumption that Lachie had accidentally drowned and a subsequent lack of input from the police’s Criminal Investigation Branch.
There was substandard interviewing of witnesses, too — Lachie’s mother Michelle Officer only made a signed statement 10 days after he died, and his half-brother Jonathan Scott was interviewed a month later.
Rumours of foul play swirled in the tight-knit community as the boy’s father, Paul Jones, vocally pointed out the flaws in the police’s drowning theory.
Ms Officer and Mr Scott — the last people to see Lachie alive — came under intense scrutiny at the coronial hearing.
But the coroner stressed there was no evidence of foul play and nothing to directly implicate either of the family members in his death.
Allegations of an elaborate cover-up, which were aired at the inquest, whereby Lachie’s body was stored in a freezer before being dumped in the pond were without foundation, he said.
But it was one of the few conclusive findings the coroner was able to make.
Even Lachie’s cause of death could not be determined.
A pathologist, whose name remains suppressed for now, opted not to perform a full post-mortem despite being directed to do so by the duty coroner at the time.
It meant the boy’s head was not examined, which left doubt in the coroner’s mind.
"I exercise extreme caution in relying on anything in the post-mortem report ... as establishing a pathological finding to the required standard," he said.
Lachie’s movements in the hours before his death were also hotly debated at last year’s hearing.
And the coroner cast doubt on the reliability of both his mother and half-brother.
Ms Officer picked Lachie up from preschool in the early afternoon, did some work at a courier depot and picked up then-16-year-old Mr Scott from his job.
The trio returned to their Salford St home where she ordered takeaways.
The coroner said any allegation of Lachie having died while at home made little sense.
"I accept that a morally moribund mother who accidentally killed her child in a momentary fit of violent exasperation might well panic and try to cover it up, but I do not think a natural reaction would be for her to pick up the phone and order a pizza with extra aioli," he said.
What happened later that evening though was more difficult to discern.
Ms Officer and Mr Scott both spoke about an incident in which he required her help during his home-gym workout.
While she said the incident was brief, the teen said it lasted longer.
"The notion that a mother would stand for anything close to five minutes and watch her 16-year-old son lie on a bench ... while her 3-year-old child remained unattended in another room, is inherently unbelievable," the coroner said.
He also described it as "odd" that Mr Scott seemed unable to recall the last point he saw Lachie alive.
The coroner, though, said it did not automatically mean the witness was lying or that he was hiding anything sinister.
After the gym incident, Ms Officer said she noticed Lachie had slipped out of the house and she rushed out to corral him on the road.
While out there, they popped into neighbour Debbie Thurston’s home where they chatted.
Ms Officer said during that brief period, Lachie escaped again, sparking a frantic and ultimately fruitless search.
The coroner said he could not accept, on the balance of probabilities, that Lachie had been at the address.
"This leaves open a range of possibilities about the care and supervision of Lachie that evening which, in my view, would benefit from further exploration," he said.
"I am not satisfied that everything [Ms Officer] said was a complete and accurate recount of events."
The coroner did, however, rely on six eyewitnesses who said they saw a boy running in the direction of the oxidation ponds.
While the variations in their evidence demonstrated "the frailty of human memory", it was most likely Lachie they saw.
So what happened next?
"There is an innate sense of improbability that a 3-and-a-half-year-old boy could, or would, run barefoot in a soiled nappy, more than 1.2km from home to a place he had ostensibly never been, including clambering over a fence with no apparent knowledge of what was on the other side, and over uncomfortable terrain," the coroner said.
Specialists said though such a journey would be unusual, Lachie would have been physically capable.
The fact he had not before showed a tendency to run off did not affect the plausibility of him doing so that night, the coroner said.
"That there is a first time for everything is cliche for a reason," he said.
Indeed, the coroner said it was the "most likely scenario" — but other possibilities could not be ruled out because of the shoddy police work.
"There was an approximately two-hour window between [the final] sighting and when Lachie was found in the pond. That is ample time for harm to befall: a push into the pond or a deliberate holding underwater of him would take only seconds. Investigating police made no attempt to consider, investigate or work to exclude this possibility," the coroner said.
While the Independent Police Conduct Authority had decided not to take the failures of investigating officers further, it would be provided with the coronial findings.
Similarly, the document would be forwarded to the Medical Council in respect of the pathologist who conducted the post-mortem.
However, it was noted the clinician was no longer registered to practice in New Zealand.
"I am not convinced that we have heard the entire truth about the events of 29 January 2019," the coroner said.
"I originally intended to conclude by saying that Lachie’s death, and the events that followed it, were unsatisfactory in many respects. On reflection, I considered that to be an understatement."
Lachlan Jones death
What now?
• Police have been ordered to undertake a ‘‘full and fresh investigation’’ of the matter.
• They have until January to update the court on their renewed inquiries.
• The coroner has referred his findings to the IPCA for it to review his criticisms of the police investigation.
• The decision has also been passed on to the Medical Council in relation to the postmortem that took place.
Criticisms of police
• The inquiry was tarnished by the immediate opinion the death had been an accidental drowning.
• There were numerous errors with what police recorded in statements, which departed from the witnesses’ actual account of events.
• Expert input from the police’s Criminal Investigation Branch was not sought.
• Tasks which should have been undertaken in a criminal-standard investigation were not completed, resulting in information being ‘‘irretrievably lost’’.
• Delays in statements being gathered risked memory being diluted or corrupted.
• Police did not go to the scene of Lachie’s death to check cellphone geolocation data.
• There was confusion about which senior police officer was leading the investigation.
• There was no scene investigation of the area where Lachie was found.
